


god punched me in the face and said 'i'm sorry'

by perennials



Series: whence [5]
Category: Gintama
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 20:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19775929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennials/pseuds/perennials
Summary: What're you looking at.





	god punched me in the face and said 'i'm sorry'

**Author's Note:**

> do not fall to pieces now. think only of the next minute
> 
> warning for slight, very slight body horror.

They do not send children to the war. The children send themselves, clad in origami hats and their dead parents’ ceremonial robes. They do not know any better, and no one tells them not to. Shinsuke has spent half of his life being hurt and the other half of it hurting (and hurting); what difference will this make? Swords are not toys, but he knows that. He’s good with his, anyway, good enough for a child.

They do not send children to the war, but when the war finds itself in Edo the way the sad and the drunk wake up in strangers’ beds with half their bodies missing, Sakata Gintoki has a sword in his hand. He looks dead and bruised and pretty, lighting up the battlefield like some holy messenger of god with his sheer white hair and billowing white clothes until he swings the thing in his hand and the miracle snaps in half, a raffia string lottery for the bereaved. Shinsuke burns under all the heavy layers of his armor for his comrade. His battle clothes are too large for him, they are a dead soldier’s mantle. The chain links dig into his skin when he moves. He never quite grew into himself completely and, too busy laughing at his wounds to watch the way his eyes turned glassy, no one ever gave him the chance to.

In the evening they make camp in the woods and Gintoki slams sweet sake down his throat in their dead teacher’s ceremonial robes. He looks breakable like a child’s toy and Shinsuke likes it. His eyes are bloodshot and Shinsuke wants to lick each socket dry. Shinsuke would kiss him, but he doesn’t— they sent themselves to this war, they cannot fall to pieces now. Think only of the next minute, where your feet will go, how to stay sober before the frightening, childlike face of madness eats your tongue.

"What're you looking at," Gintoki says.

_Your pretty fucking face._ "Nothing."

Gintoki swallows another mouthful of sake and in a tent ten meters away from them, Katsura Koutarou hears the cry of a cicada and flinches. Ten meters away from him, Sakamoto Tatsuma is picking his way back through the undergrowth, his shoulders weighed down with gunmetal.

Perhaps they should have gone somewhere else, like the ocean, and stayed there. Shinsuke wishes Shouyou had told them how beautiful it was when he was still alive. Surely they would have believed him.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nikiforcvs) or [tumblr](http://corpsentry.tumblr.com/)
> 
> twitter prompt party. i'm only posting these here because i get to come up with a title and if i don't come up with a title i'll never come up with a title. actually i never finished gintama, maybe i should do that someday  
> thanks for reading, you're gold
> 
> have a good one


End file.
